NCCI Reports Workers Compensation Claims Continue to Decline

"Preliminary results indicate a decline of 4.0% for 2008. This is on the heels of a 2.6% drop in claim frequency in 2007 and it extends a trend that started in the 1990s. While the overall decline is widespread .... high-cost Permanent Total claims have emerged recently as a noticeable exception to this decline."

The key finding of their analysis were:

Over the last five years, there were significant declines in total lost-time claims frequency for all industries, geographic regions, and employer sizes

The number and frequency of Permanent Total claims have increased significantly over the last four years, with all major causes of injury contributing to the rise

The rise in Permanent Total claims appears to be driven primarily by workers age 50 or under

While claim frequency generally decreases as risk size increases, single-state risks in some classes have higher claim frequency at the higher payroll sizes than at lower payroll sizes